Serial Sunday: The Owl and the Hawk, Part III
By Matthew Kresal.
22nd of October, 1962
Wyst had tried to put the conversation she’d overheard out of her mind. Working in the West Wing, around the actual office of the President of the United States, made one aware of all sorts of court intrigue. Things that more often than not came to nothing in the grand scheme of things, a week or a month being an epoch in Washington time.
Even so, it had become clear to her something was amiss. She couldn’t attend meeting or take notes, but she could see the likes of Bob McNamara and the military brass wandering in and out of meetings. Then there was Bobby Kennedy popping in and out at all hours. That wasn’t unusual, everyone knew he was his brother’s keeper in more ways than one. It was the way he came and went, the look on his face, that was different. Maybe it was the memories of half a lifetime ago coming back to her, seeing the generals in the Pacific theater and later Korea making life and death decisions.
Please, don’t let that be what’s about to happen here.
“McDougal?”
Wyst turned at the sound of her name. Down the corridor came the bulky figure of Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. His dark caterpillar eyebrows raised up as he made his final approach with a stack of papers in his large hands.
“Yes, sir?” Wyst kept her own red eyebrows fixed firmly in place, determined not to imitate her boss.
“Here’s the press releases about the president’s return from the Chicago trip with that cold. Or it would be if it wasn’t riddled with typo after typo. I mean there’s only so many ‘L’s’ you can put in ‘Daly’. Who the hell typed this?”
“I’ve no idea!”
Wyst knew precisely who had typed it. Everyone who was part of the day to day West Wing staff knew that the typist in question was employed for reasons that had nothing to do with her secretarial capabilities. Though, office gossip had it, the president rather enjoyed her other finger work.
“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate but,” Salinger offered his sympathetic puppy dog eyes, “would you mind?”
Wyst held out a hand to go with her closed smile. “Not at all. I’ll get to it right away.”
“Thank you!” Salinger deposited the stack into her hand. Without another thought, he turned away from her and was gone. It was all Wyst could do not to drop the pages into the nearest waste paper basket.
“Lord, I miss the Corps,” she mumbled under her breath. She was still in the Women’s Reserve, but it didn’t offer much. She had thought that making her way to working in the White House, even if it was just in the Press Office, would help to give her some sense of purpose. The nine months she’d spent here had its moments, but nothing like what she had hoped for.
“Damn Kennedy’s!” A man grumbled down one of the corridors.
Wyst felt a pang of recognition at the voice, though she couldn’t quite place from where or to whom it belonged. She slid her way toward the wall, hearing as footsteps approached at pace.
“We ought to bomb them to the Stone Age!” The man all but bellowed, louder and closer this time.
Wyst felt her mouth go dry and turned to walk the opposite direction, only to catch a flash of blue uniform. Too late to alter her course, she inched ever closer toward the wall and held up the papers as if reading them. Over the top of the page, she caught sight of two Air Force officers. One was a full general with four stars, the other a colonel with silver eagles on his shoulders.
“I can’t make them understand this is the last chance we have to get Castro and the missiles,” the general spat out. “I can’t get it through their skulls. Or McNamara’s for that damn matter.”
“They’re going with the blockade then?”
“Yes,” the general let out a bitter chuckle. “He’s telling the whole world at seven. God help us from there, bit at least we’ll be at DEFCON 3 if the Reds try to hit us first.”
“We still have other options.” The way the Colonel spoke sent a shiver up Wyst’s spine. She couldn’t hide the tremble, hoping more than ever that the men failed to notice her.
“We may have to enact Star Drop,” the general nodded. “What did Bilke tell you about the weekend’s exercises?”
Wyst felt her shoulders drop as the two slipped out of sight. Her thoughts escaped her lips in the next moment. “What was that about?”
Still holding the press releases to be retyped, she made her way to the little office in the press area she shared. It was empty at the moment, something which suited her. Wyst sat the pages down, thought over the conversation in the hallway, and made up her mind that she’d speak with Salinger. He wasn’t technically her immediate boss, but he was always available to those in the press office.
Turning back to the door, Wyst let out a gasp. Salinger let out an embarrassed laugh and help up a pair of apologetic hands. The smile that appeared with time about made her laugh.
“Sorry I scared you, McDougal! I was going to say not to worry about the retyping.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Because we’ve got other things to worry about.” There was a bluntness in the Press Secretary’s words that took the smile off of his face. “The President will be going on TV tonight at seven. We need to be ready to field queries between now and then.”
“Is that why the Air Force just left?”
Salinger’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who did you see?”
“I don’t know their names. It was a four star and a bird colonel, probably his aide. I saw them on Friday before you left for Chicago.”
“General LeMay and Colonel Richards, yes.” Salinger frowned. “I just hope the press boys didn’t notice them or the others.”
“They didn’t seem happy with what had been decided.” In for a penny, Wyst thought as she saw an opportunity present itself. “Something is happening in Cuba, isn’t it?”
Salinger shook his head. “I bet they were blowing off steam.”
“It sure sounded like it, sir.”
“The generals wanted to go in last April. They just see this is another chance to prove their right. That’s all it is. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
Salinger had smiled while he spoke. Trying, Wyst sensed, to be reassuring. He knew something he couldn’t yet say. She also knew that he hadn’t heard what LeMay and Richards had said or how they had said it.
“Come on,” Salinger said with a sideways nod of his head. “Come help us man the phones?”
“Of course,” Wyst answered with a reassuring smile of her own. Salinger went out the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts. They danced in worrying patterns, paths leading to a destination she could not yet see.
“I need someone to talk to,” she said to herself.
Saying the words triggered a memory. A party, one of the many little gatherings you’d find in this town among the would-be movers and shakers. Not in Georgetown where it was fashionable among the senators and members of Congress, but always good for a free drink and decent bite to eat. An old face from the Corps she’d bumped into, milling around seeking fodder for his own work.
Chris.
“McDougal?” It wasn’t Salinger but someone from the office who for her. Things must be getting dicey already. Chris Bennefield’s phone number would have to stay in her memory for now.
***
Monday’s were never Bennefield’s favorite days of the week. This one was even less so than normal as he stood in the evening chill wearing his black suit. The one that the tailor he’d bought it from years earlier had called a “mourning suit.”
Though the term felt morbid, Bennefield couldn’t argue with its accuracy. He’d only worn it a handful of times and all of them had been funerals. It was purely ceremonial, another part of the duty he was still serving.
Especially for you, Mike.
They should have buried him in Arlington. Gods knows that Mike deserved it after all the missions he’d flown and downing three MiGs (and a couple of more that hadn’t counted because they couldn’t be confirmed). It would have suited Marge better too, being close to the people her husband had known. Instead, his extended family had a plot waiting for him in New Jersey.
“Thank you for coming to see him off.” Marge was dressed in black, looking every inch the widow she was. She held out her hands which he accepted.
He felt the smooth gloves as he unconsciously ran his thumbs over the top of her hands. Realizing what he was doing, he looked down at them and then up into her sad blue eyes, wet from the tears that would no doubt soon pour from them.
“I’m seeing you both off,” Bennefield took comfort from the slight smile that formed on her face. “Will you let me know when the funeral is? I’ll do what I can to make it.”
“You know I will.”
They embraced for a moment, then she pulled away. Holding a small black purse, she popped it open, the clasp popping open in the crisp October air.
“You sure you don’t want the handkerchief back?”
“I’d prefer if you kept it.”
Bennefield knew why she was making small talk. Over her shoulder, the casket of Mike Oliver, lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps, was being gingerly loaded into the cargo car of the train by a group of men. Bennefield didn’t blame her for not wanting to watch.
“I wish I’d come into the city more,” Marge blurted out. “Mike and I only saw it when we first moved here. He always promised that he’d me to see the sights one day.”
“Alas, duty called.” Bennefield finished the thought for her. The sad smile on her face tugged at something bittersweet within him. Not that he wanted to address it, especially here and now.
Bennefield was grateful when he caught the porter looking toward them. The casket was on the train, the porter merely giving the nod. Bennefield returned it, realizing now that there was a sad smile on his own face.
“I gave you the paper’s number. Leave them a message to give me when you get there.”
“I’m still not sure why I can’t call you at your apartment?”
Bennefield gave a brief laugh. “I’m rarely there, Marge.”
A whistle blew. Bennefield looked into those blue eyes, now a touch less sad than before. But for how long?
“Call me, please?”
Marge gave a brave smile and stepped away. Bennefield watched her slip up onto the train, disappearing somewhere inside the graceful steel tube as it pulled away. Now, he knew, it was his turn to leave.
Bennefield walked along the platform, watching the people going to and from their trains. Mothers with children, young lovebirds, the traveling salesmen with their cases. The odd soldier and sailor, some in uniform and others in civilian attire though their manner made them stand out even in a city like Washington. Including one with a naval uniform under an overcoat that Bennefield realized was staring right at him.
The reporter kept moving, watching the young man for a minute until a shot of recognition went though his body.
“Roosa?” Bennefield called out in the split moment before a train whistle deafened all other sounds on the platform.
The lieutenant caught his question and nodded. Bennefield made his way over, casting one final look toward the departing train that was taking his old friend and the man’s widow away from Washington.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, sir.” Roosa’s words caused Bennefield to turn back around.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, either.”
“I wanted to pay my respects to the colonel.’
Bennefield nodded. He looked the young officer over again, noticing that the dark haired young man had the bluest eyes that he’d ever seen, a detail Bennefield realized he hadn’t noticed at the Pentagon. More to the point, their meeting here offered an opportunity.
“Come on,” he smiled at the navy man, “I’ll walk out with you.”
They started up the platform toward the entrance and the city.
“How long had you served under Mike?”
“You mean the colonel?”
Bennefield nodded, smiling at how the young man called his old friend by rank. He watched the young man spend a moment getting some thoughts together. The seriousness made the reporter chuckle.
“It’s not a question on an Annapolis final, lieutenant.”
It was Roosa’s turn to chuckle. He shook his head and glanced at the reporter. Bennefield repeated his question.
“Around a year, ever since I got posted to the Pentagon.”
“Communications, right?”
“Not quite.”
The conversation paused as a couple of young boys went streaking by, ignoring the cries of their mother. She apologized for them, Bennefield offering an understanding smile as sent hurried past. Roosa looked perturbed, needing another gentle prod from the journalist.
“You said ‘not quite’ communications?”
“Well, we transmit plans, you might say. Things we come up with.”
“Planning?” Bennefield bit his bottom lip. “I wouldn’t have thought that Mike would have been involved with that.”
“We aren’t, not in what would be the norm.”
“So it’s some kind of war planning?”
Roosa froze on the spot. Bennefield realized he’d stepped onto a proverbial landmine. With it had come the same deer in headlights expression the young man had worn on Friday. Bennefield raised his hands a little.
“I know I’m a civilian—“
“I could get in trouble, you know?” Roosa folded his arms across his chest. “This isn’t worth losing my career over, even if you were the colonel’s friend.”
“And I was a marine, remember?” The words came out harsher than Bennefield intended, causing Roosa to take a step back. The reporter closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t want you to violate any orders or jeopardize national security. I didn’t ask that of Mike and I sure won’t ask it of you. Understood?”
“Understood.”
They started walking again, not saying a word as they moved past vendors, magazine stalls, and spinner racks full of cheap paperbacks. Bennefield glanced at the issues of Time and Newsweek with intriguing covers. He used them and the random words he saw to gather mental ammunition. He found the question he wanted to ask as they approached the exit out onto Columbia Plaza.
“I’ve been working on a piece about Mike,” Bennefield found himself saying. It wasn’t a lie since he’d talked Eidel into letting him do it as part of his coverage of the Pentagon. It also gave him a licence to probe, especially at times like this.
“And?”
“There are two words that keep coming up.” Bennefield held up his hands as though he weighing something in each. “One of them is cog, the other is star drop.”
“That’s three words,” Roosa commented with a smile. It lingered for a few seconds and then Bennefield realized it was faltering. The lieutenant mouthed a sheepish ‘sorry.’
“Do you know what either one means?” Press on, Bennefield thought, before the boy loses his nerve. “Can you tell me that?”
“I can’t. At least about ‘cog.’ I’ll say that we worked on the DOD side of it.”
“And what about ‘star drop?’ Both words?” Bennefield’s quip got Roosa to smile.
“I don’t know anything much about that,” he admitted. Then the smile once more vanished and the eyes narrowed. “I know that it worried the colonel. Whatever it was, he didn’t entirely approve.”
“So you don’t know what it is?”
“I don’t have the clearance that the colonel had. I know it was something that he worked on but which he didn’t think was right. He didn’t understand the need for it.”
“But he never said what it was for?”
Bennefield’s chest tightened with frustration as the lieutenant shook his head yet again. He wanted to grab the kid by the lapels, shake an answer out of him. Logic told him that the information he was given was all young Roosa had to offer. Except, perhaps, for one other thing.
“What does ‘cog’ mean?”
Roosa’s eyes shot up at the question. Another shake of the head, a nervous smile. “It’s classified, like I said.”
“Of course.” Bennefield closed his eyes, running a hand over his crew cut. It was time to let this fish off the hook and move on. “I appreciate you talking to me.”
Bennefield opened his eyes, expecting Roosa to be gone. Instead, the young man stood there with a curious expression. Those bluer than blue eyes blinked in contemplation.
“Mr. Bennefield, do you think he was killed because of our work?”
It was the question that Bennefield had been asking himself. He had hoped for an answer, instead he had only gotten himself handed more question. He could only be honest with the kid.
“I don’t know. My gut tells me something is up, but I can’t tell what it is. Not yet, anyway.”
Roosa gave an accepting nod. “If I think of anything, can I reach you?”
Bennefield gave Roosa the number of the paper, using the same card he always gave. Roosa bid him farewell and walked out into the night. Roosa looked at his watch, seeing it was shortly before seven. Would the kid be going back to the Pentagon or going home for the night?
Bennefield looked over the station, a quiet yet busy hive of activity. Seeing the phone booths, he fumbled in his pockets for some change. Finding it and spotting a man hanging up his phone, Bennefield strode over to it atop his long legs. Eidel would want an update on his piece, especially since he’d missed the Sunday edition.
Or so Bennefield had anticipated.
“Forget all that!” Eidel blasted down the line with such force that reporter expected cigar smoke to come through the line. It was all Bennefield could do not to ask if his editor was out of his mind given the excitement in his voice.
“What’s going on?”
The editor laughed. “Haven’t you heard?”
Bennefield shifted uncomfortably, turning in the booth. Looking out into the station, his attention focused on a group of people that had begun gathering around one of the vendors, an older looking man who was fiddling with a radio.
“That’s rich!” Eidel’s laugh caught his attention again. “The reporter has to get news from the editor for a change. Kennedy is about to go live at seven to give a speech. I guess that exercise I asked you about was cover for something after all! Listen in and get back here!”
Bennefield hung up the phone and stepped outside. Bennefield turned his wrist over, taking a quick glance at his watch and how little time there was before seven. He’d never make it somewhere with a television in time. The old man and his radio would have to be his best bet.
Bennefield joined an ever growing group. His mind went back to Pearl Harbor, the Sunday afternoon where lunch had been interrupted by his father coming in, rushing to the radio and flipping it on in time to hear the news bulletin being read out again. Bennefield glanced around, seeing boys and girls the same age he’d been back in 1941. Would this moment be the same for them one day?
“And now,” an announcer said, “the President of the United States.”
“Good evening, my fellow citizens,” Kennedy’s voice crackled through the speaker with that distinctive accent of his. “This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba.”
“Cuba again?” Someone in the crowd said. They were hurriedly silenced before the president spoke again.
“Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of this rapid offensive build-up can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”
Bennefield closed his eyes. Eidel had been right about Cuba, after all. Did that mean an invasion? Or a larger war? What did it all have to do with Mike, cog, and star drop? For now, he could only listen to the speech and go see his editor. Maybe, by the grace of God, Eidel wouldn’t gloat in his face too much.
Matthew Kresal is, among other things, the author of the SLP book Our Man on the Hill and short stories in the anthologies AlloAmericana, The Emerald Isles, and The Scottish Anthology.
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